This is the first of a two-part series on

Through Riverside’s tricky, trademark esses, Dan
Gurney leads Stirling Moss—both in Lotus 19s—while
eventual winner Billy Krause in a Maserati T-61 keeps the
pressure on in the October, 1960 L.A. Times Grand Prix.
38
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
This is the first of a two-part series on
Riverside Raceway. Part 1 covers the birth and
development of the track, its growth through
the 1960s and up to 1970.
B
efore its birth, it was a turkey farm.
Upon its demise, it became a
shopping mall. But, between 1957
and 1988, thunderous machines from every
one of America’s premier racing series
ripped through the desert air of Southern
California at Riverside International
Raceway. And the greatest drivers in the
world would lay rubber to pavement at
what was once the western United States’
pre-eminent road circuit. Along the way,
legends were born and stories written.
Riverside was and still is the only race
course in the U.S. that can lay claim to
having hosted Can-Am, F5000, Formula 1,
IMSA GT, Indy car, IROC, NASCAR,
NHRA drag racing, many forms of off-road
racing, Trans-Am—even motorcycle,
sprint and midget events.
Riverside carries with it a mystique that
few racetracks, whether still in existence or
long since gone, can claim to possess. “I
think a couple of things contribute to the
mystique,” says Sam Posey, who raced
Riverside in a whole variety of cars from
the late ’60s to the late ’70s. “One, frankly,
is the grandeur of the layout. You had turns
at Riverside that were very distinctive.
They had their own quality and character.
As tough as anything, but unlike turns you
found anywhere else in racing. You also
had great history. There were some
wonderful stock car races, especially
through the ’60s. The origins of the CanAm happened right there. And you had
those great, old hybrid cars like Ol’ Yaller
racing against the exotics from Europe—
Billy Krause in a Birdcage Maserati—Phil
Hill in a big Ferrari.”
Riverside had an imagery that was
unmistakable—from its trademark esses
to tires painted white,
BY JOHN B. HEIMANN
It was distinct because of where it was,
out on the edge of the desert near a
nondescript town. Riverside’s mystique
reached to the core of racer and spectator
alike—its layout magical and its races
memorable.
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
39
buried half in the ground, which for so
many years acted as curbing in nearly every
corner. Then there were the winds that
blew across the desert, oftentimes creating
a thin layer of sandy dust across the track’s
asphalt surface. And, of course, there was
the racing. For those who experienced
Riverside, their recollected memories are a
vivid reminder of how special a couple of
miles of asphalt can be.
Riverside, in its prime, was arguably the
United States’ most recognizable road
course name. Yet, as popular as Riverside
would eventually become, the building of
the raceway almost never happened.
No Place to Race
During the 1950s, Los Angeles was fast
becoming the car capital of the U.S. Car
clubs flourished all over the Southland.
However, the lack of a quality, permanent
racing venue was a frustration for SoCal
road racers and racing fans alike. Willow
Springs Raceway was completed in 1953,
but was woefully inadequate for
professional racing with virtually no
facilities and an uncomfortably rough
racing surface.
Les Richter, who managed Riverside
from the early ’60s to 1982, recalls, “At
that period, all types of racing were in
demand, but road racing was especially
popular.”
“It was the heyday of the automobile.
The car was still man’s best friend,” adds
Dan Gurney, who dominated Riverside in
nearly every type of car he raced in.
“Before Riverside, there wasn’t anything
else near Los Angeles. You had some
small tracks—Pomona, Torrey Pines near
San Diego, Paramount Ranch, Palm
Springs and Santa Barbara, but none of
them had prestige.”
This void had piqued the interest of
several entrepreneurial racing enthusiasts
during the mid-’50s. Indeed, two separate,
multi-million dollar road courses to be
developed in the Ontario, Calif., area in
1956 were in the early planning stages.
Ultimately, however, those two deals
would collapse. Yet, the dream of a
raceway in Southern California would
not die.
Enter Rudy Cleye. Cleye was a
restaurateur and a winning amateur racer
who had been involved in the California
Sports Car Club (Cal Club) and the
Southern California road-racing scene for
years. He owned a successful restaurant in
Los Angeles, the Grand Prix, which
attracted many from the racing crowd.
Cleye had in fact been linked with one of
the two proposed courses in Ontario.
40
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
Near the end of 1956, Cleye formed the
International Motor Raceway Association
with the goal of bringing Formula 1 to
Southern California. A 640-acre parcel of
land was purchased in the desert 60 miles
east of Los Angeles and Cleye announced
his intentions of building Riverside
International Raceway. As president of the
new association, Cleye negotiated with
Riverside County’s board of supervisors and
gained a building permit to begin
construction of a track in the town of
Edgemont.
Cleye hired James E. Peterson, another
successful Cal Club racer, to design the
track and William L. Duquette to be the
architect. Peterson’s design was inspired
by the great European tracks. “I would say
that the European tracks tend to have
characteristics that are distinctive of
where they are,” remarks Sam Posey. “In
that sense, (Peterson) achieved
something. The track is very abstract and
the desert is very abstract when you think
about it. And no matter where you
viewed the racing from, you sensed the
speed. The cars really dominated your
senses there.”
Peterson smartly incorporated multiple
configuration possibilities with long
straights and connectors that allowed for
various road course and circle track
lengths. This at once meant the circuit
could host circle track races, drag races and
road racing events, including endurance
races and club races.
Left: Only a
typically smoggy
July afternoon in
1959, Jim Jeffords
flogs the famous
“Purple People
Eater” Corvette at
the Kiwanis GP.
Below: Bob Drake
approaches Turn 7
in his Maserati
Birdcage during a
Cal Club Regional
in Dec. ’59.
Above: Phil Hill in a one-off Ferrari 412
battles Chuck Daigh’s Scarab during the
L.A. Times GP in Oct. ’58. Hill DNF’d
while Daigh won. Below: Riverside’s
early race programs are sought-after
collectibles today.
What was planned was a nine-turn
primary road course of 3.275 miles in
length with an additional two-mile road
course configuration at the northeast edge
of the property that could be incorporated
into the main road course for endurance
races or used as a separate circuit, intended
for club races. Circle track configurations
of one-half mile, three quarters of a mile
and one mile were designed, each of which
used Turn 9 as the south turn. The pits
were located on the outside of the track
exiting Turn 9 on the start/finish straight.
Although Cleye had the funding to buy
the land and have the course laid out on
paper, he didn’t have the money to begin
construction. Unfortunately, Cleye was
required to begin building within 90 days
of issuance of the permit.
As luck would have it, one of Cleye’s
regular restaurant patrons, John Edgar, the
colorful son of an Ohio-based industrialist,
was a racing fanatic who had just come
into a substantial inheritance. Edgar had
been involved in racing for some years,
mostly as a benefactor to various drivers,
including Jack McAfee and Carroll Shelby.
With $100,000 in rescue funding from
Edgar, Cleye began construction of the
raceway. According to John’s son, Bill, the
initial investment for building the track
was just under $500,000. And so Riverside
was born.
However, what was planned and what
was actually built were two different
things. The two-mile course, intended for
the northeast section of the track, never
came to fruition due to financial
constraints. Only a 5/8-of-a-mile long
circle track was built, rather than the three
planned. But the nine-turn, 3.275-mile
road course came to be in the summer of
1957. It was a wide-open race driver’s
dream. A connector between Turns 6 and
8 allowed the course to be shortened to 2.6
miles. It was quick, too, with a long 1.1mile back straight that led to the 180degree final turn. This backstretch was also
ideal for drag racing, which also would find
a home at Riverside for many years.
“There were rumors that Riverside was
going to be built,” remembers Dan Gurney.
“I used to go out there on my motorcycle
and follow the bulldozers around as they
were flattening what would become the
circuit. As it actually started to turn into
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
41
reality, well, it was a dream come true. Here
it was in my hometown and I had visions of
sugarplums and I felt so lucky, like this was
going to be a steppingstone to be able to
become a professional race car driver.”
It’s rare when one driver becomes
inextricably linked to a single track; that a
driver’s performance at one course is so
consistently outstanding that you can’t
think of one without the other. A.J. Foyt
and Indianapolis come to mind. So too
does Richard Petty and Daytona. Dan
Gurney and Riverside are linked in this
way. Gurney proved over and over that he
could win at Riverside in any kind of car
on any given day. And win he did, in
NASCAR stock cars, champ cars, and
sports cars.
Gurney’s parents had moved to the area
in 1947, purchasing a small orange grove
and settling in. Gurney’s first race was at
Torrey Pines in a modified TR2 and his
first win would come at Paramount Ranch
in December 1957 in Frank Arciero’s 4.9
Ferrari, both in Southern California.
“I ended up getting some of my biggest
breaks for my own personal career at
Riverside,” says Gurney. “I drove Cal
Bailey’s Corvette and won a race there and
because of that, I ended up driving Frank
Arciero’s 4.9 Ferrari. That got me noticed
by Luigi Chinetti in New York, who
watched all the Ferrari results.” The rest, as
they say, is history.
The first race at Riverside, a Cal Club
event, was held September 21 and 22 of
1957. Some 250 entries were received and
a huge crowd of nearly 30,000 spectators
turned out to christen the track. That first
weekend had a bit of everything. Sadly,
John Lawrence was killed that first day of
racing when his MGA flipped near the end
of the esses. Gurney got his win in the
Corvette. And Richie Ginther, driving a
Ferrari owned by none other than John
Edgar, would pull off the win in Sunday’s
main event.
Jack Brabham had already sewn up the
second of his World Championship driving
titles when he raced a factory Cooper the
U.S.Grand Prix in Nov. 1960.
Above: Stirling
Moss won the
1960 USGP
convincingly in
Rob Walker’s
Lotus 18.
Left: Moss seems
to be thinking,
“I’ll just clock Big
Dan to make sure
he doesn’t pip me
for pole.”
Right: Dan
Gurney seems
resigned to the fact
that his BRM P48
won’t last to the
finish at
Riverside’s USGP.
42
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
Left: In Oct. ’60,
towing all the way
from Pa. came No.
83, Peter Ryan;
No. 6, Roger
Penske and No.
14, Bob Holbert—
a well-prepared
Porsche team for
the Times GP.
Below: It’s Oct.
’64 at the Times
race and Paul
Reinhart’s Genie
MkVIII leads Jim
Adams, Ed Leslie,
Jack Brabham,
Ken Miles, Trevor
Taylor and Allen
Grant.
Left: Drag races
were held on
Riverside’s long
straightaway, just
north of Turn 9.
Here Connie
Kalitta’s “Bounty
Hunter” SOHC
Ford Top Fueler
(left) blasts off
against the Radar
Wheels machine
on June 20, 1965
at Hot Rod
Magazine’s big
annual to-do.
44
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
Riverside subsisted mostly on club races,
sprint and midget car events throughout
1957 and the early part of 1958. But subsist
was about all the track did, until the fall of
1958, when Riverside put together the one
event that would turn everything around
for the raceway and have a far reaching
impact on sports car racing in the U.S.
The L.A.Times Grand Prix
“What made Riverside was the L.A. Times
Grand Prix,” Les Richter says emphatically.
In the late ’50s and early ’60s,
professional sports car racing was in its
embryonic stages. Prior to 1958, a number
of attempts had been made to run
professional sports car events, but with
little success. The SCCA, the country’s
most popular sports car sanctioning body,
was strictly an amateur club at this time
and refused to sully its reputation by
allowing members to take prize money for
racing. However, the Cal Club, which
would ultimately merge with the SCCA in
December 1961, was more powerful than
the SCCA in Southern California and had
plenty of members chomping at the bit to
run in a pro race. Riverside pushed ahead
with its plans for a race in the fall of 1958,
unsure of how many drivers and teams
would enter. The track brought in the
United States Auto Club and the Cal Club
to sanction the event.
What Riverside’s first pro race had
going for it was one of the biggest
newspapers in the country as the event
sponsor. “The Los Angeles area was
growing immensely,” recalls Deke
Houlgate, one-time PR man for Riverside.
“So was the automobile business. The Los
Angeles Times had a vested interest in
promoting its image with the car dealers
and manufacturers for advertising purposes.
And the reason Riverside and the Times
got together was because of a guy named
Bill Dredge.” Dredge, a car nut, ran the
automotive section of the paper.
When Otis Chandler, marketing
manager of the Times, was approached by
Riverside to sponsor the event, he went to
Dredge for his opinion. Dredge believed it
would be an asset to the automotive
section to have visibility at a sports car
racing event. Chandler put Paul Schissler
and Glenn Davis, former standout running
back for Army’s once dominant football
team, in charge of promoting the event.
Thanks to the newpaper’s powerful
reach, the crowds for the L.A. Times
Grand Prix sports car races during the late
’50s and early ’60s were remarkable. Les
Richter estimated attendance at between
50,000 and 75,000 each year.
The entry list for the first event was
huge. Despite SCCA warnings to its
members that anyone participating in the
Riverside race risked expulsion, plenty of
amateur drivers signed up. So successful
was the 1958 event with 70,000 fans in
attendance (won by Chuck Daigh in a
Scarab MKII), the SCCA relented and
allowed its members to participate in the
race the following year. Over the next
several years the field would be filled
with the biggest names in sports car
racing: Jack Brabham, Jim Clark, Masten
Gregory, Jim Hall, Phil Hill, Innes
Ireland, Bruce McLaren, Stirling Moss,
Roger Penske, Hap Sharp, Carroll Shelby,
John Surtees and, of course, Dan Gurney,
to name but a few. And the races featured
most, if not all, of the best sports cars
ever built.
Riverside’s first attempt at running
NASCAR stock cars also came in 1958.
Unfortunately, the initial foray into stock
car racing was less than the blockbuster
success the L.A. Times Grand Prix was.
Bill France Sr., whose reputation as the
tough-nosed head of NASCAR was in the
process of being built, created a ruckus at
his sanctioning body’s first Riverside event,
the Crown America 500 on Memorial
weekend. At the time, stock car racing’s
appeal was limited mostly to the
southeastern U.S.
The weekend’s big draw was three 500mile events—the first, a sprint car race
held on Friday. The midget and stock car
races were left for the latter part of the
weekend. While a huge crowd showed up
Friday to watch the sprint cars, few showed
up for the weekend’s other attractions.
France had urged the promoters, Galard
Sloanaker and Charles Curryer, to run the
stock car race the same day as the sprints,
but they refused. France showed up in
person to collect the guaranteed prize
money, in cash, and held up the start of
the race until the money could be
collected from the various gates. While
France got his money, the promoters and
the track took a bath on the weekend to
the tune of about $50,000. Parnelli Jones’
’56 Ford sat on the pole and led 147 laps
until he crashed in Turn 6. Eddie Gray was
the eventual winner.
Changing Players
The famous saying coined by Briggs
Cunningham, “How do you make a small
fortune in auto racing? You start out with
a large one,” could apply just as easily to
John Edgar and his investment position in
Riverside. Edgar quickly tired of the
continued losses and in 1960, sold his
46
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
interest to the investment syndicate of
R.G. Lewis, Ernest Johnson, Don Ford
and Dean Mears and “was damn lucky to
get his money back,” said Bill Edgar
recently. Eventually a real estate
investment group run by oilman and L.A.
Rams team owner Ed Pauley with partners
Fred Levy and entertainer Bob Hope
Formula 1 circus in November of 1960
with hopes the prestige of the
international event would attract fans.
Stirling Moss won the only United States
Grand Prix to ever be run at Riverside.
Despite the coup for the track, the Grand
Prix drew only 5000 spectators, far fewer
than expected.
Right: Racing on
to his fourth
straight win in the
Riverside 500 in
January 1966,
Dan Gurney
speeds through
Turn 8 in a Wood
Brothers-prepared
Ford. In ’67, Ford
politics moved him
to a Bud Moore
Mercury Comet,
but a blown engine
ended his day.
became involved. Several years later,
Pauley, Levy and Hope stepped in to run
the entire operation.
Les Richter played for the L.A. Rams
football team from 1954 to 1962. In
addition to his on-the-field responsibilities,
Richter oversaw a number of real estate
properties owned by Pauley, Levy and
Hope. “One day, they told me Riverside
was my baby. It was my responsibility to try
to solve the problems the track was having.
That was the beginning of a great time in
my life,” Richter explains.
What Richter inherited was a
mismanaged mess. With an absence of bigtime auto racing at Riverside, save for the
L.A. Times GP, it’s a miracle the track
survived. “There were a couple of years
there where we used to read the profit and
loss statement upside down so the
parentheses would always be at the top,”
says Richter. NASCAR stock cars didn’t
race at Riverside from ’59 to ’63. Drag
racing, just becoming a big time
professional sport in the late ’50s and early
’60s, was not profitable for the track at
this time.
“We had a lot of assistance during those
early days to keep things together,”
explains Richter. “The California Sports
Car Club was very instrumental. They ran
many club events there. We also did a lot
of automobile testing for the big
manufacturers.”
Despite the track’s financial struggles,
management was able to attract the
With financial support from the new
owners and the revenue generated from
the L.A. Times Grand Prix, Richter was
able to put things in order and get through
to 1963 which would prove to be a
keystone year in the history of Riverside.
Stockers to the Rescue
With NASCAR’s popularity on the rise,
Les Richter realized a regular NASCAR
event was essential to the survival of the
track. Despite the earlier problems, Richter
was able to negotiate with NASCAR’s
France for the stock cars to return to
Riverside for not one, but three events in
1963. A 500-miler (sponsored by Motor
Trend magazine) was run in January, a 400miler in November and a regional 250mile event held in between in May.
The pits were moved from the outside
of the track that year to the inside to make
access to the garages easier. The January
NASCAR race included drivers from
USAC, NASCAR and the SCCA. A.J.
Foyt, Troy Ruttman and Dan Gurney lined
up alongside NASCAR regulars Fireball
Roberts and Joe Weatherly. With a crowd
of more than 50,000 looking on, Dan
Gurney’s familiarity with Riverside and his
pure driving talent paid off with a win.
Gurney would go on to win three more
500-milers, running his string of
consecutive victories to four and added
another win in 1968.
When asked what he considered his
greatest memory of Riverside, Gurney
doesn’t hesitate, “That series of stock car
victories. The thrill of running with the
Wood Brothers when they were in their
prime—that was just a very rare
opportunity and it was enormously
rewarding and enjoyable.”
Suddenly, Riverside had two big events
to bookend each season, both of which
drew big crowds and top name drivers. The
track had momentum. The arrangement
the track had with Petersen Publishing for
the Motor Trend 500 NASCAR event
would extend to NHRA drag racing in
1964. The Hot Rod Magazine
Championship Drag Races ran six years
through 1969 before the now defunct
Left: Curtis Turner
clobbers the Turn
6 wall on Lap 15
after losing his
brakes during the
Jan. ’67 Motor
Trend 500.
Below: Parnelli
Jones (No. 115)
and Dan Gurney
battle through
Turn 6 in the same
race—Jones going
on to win with
Gurney 14th after
a blown engine.
Ontario Motor Speedway convinced the
NHRA to run the Supernationals event at
its facility late the following year. Though
the drag races never drew anywhere near
the number of spectators the sports car or
stock car events did, they still helped the
track expand operations and get them to
the next benchmark year in the track’s
history—1966.
Riverside became one of the premier
venues in the United States for showcasing
the modified formula sports cars and was
largely responsible for the sport’s growth.
As this class of racing, popular with
drivers, manufacturers and fans alike, took
hold, the SCCA formed a separate
championship sanctioning body, the
United States Road Racing Championship.
The USRRC ran a limited slate of races,
running at Riverside once a year from 1964
to 1968.
However, when John Bishop and Jim
Kaser took over leadership of the SCCA,
they realized the importance of adding
professional racing series to the SCCA’s
activities. SCCA Pro Racing was born and
Left: Dan Gurney
and his Eagle are
greeted by his
father and a host
of well-wishers in
Victory Lane after
winning the USAC
Rex Mays 300 on
Nov.26, 1967.
Below: Mark
Donohue couldn’t
best winner Dan
Gurney during the
1968 running of
the Rex Mays 300.
Left: Big Banger
American sports
car racing was
always at its best
at Riverside. On
Oct. 27, ’68, Jim
Hall’s Chaparral
2G leads Mark
Donohue’s
McLaren M6B in
Turn 6. At the
finish, they
reversed the order
as both chased
winner Bruce
McLaren home.
48
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
in 1966 they launched the Canadian
American Challenge Cup. The rules were
essentially the same as those used in the
USRRC; however, the Can-Am series
boasted what was at the time one of the
biggest sponsorship deals ever announced
in racing. The S.C. Johnson Company
contributed a then-unheard-of $25,000 in
championship points funding.
Participating tracks added $5,000. With
additional race purses of around $30,000
per event (that went up as the years went
on), the Can-Am was suddenly the second
richest series in the U.S., behind the Indy
cars. This helped Can-Am draw many of
the top names in racing worldwide and
speed the popularity of the series.
The L.A. Times sponsorship fell to the
Can-Am cars and, “It was the biggest draw
we had at the time,” says Les Richter. For
eight glorious years, the Can-Am cars
streaked through the desert, pushed by the
seemingly untamable horsepower of the
dominant Chevrolet engine, until the
SCCA announced rules changes in 1973.
The Can-Am cars would not run at
Riverside for three years beginning in
1974.
Bishop and Kaser also understood the
importance of creating a professional sedan
series that could take advantage of the
booming pony car market, driven largely
by the Ford Mustang’s huge commercial
success. Thus, the Trans-American Sedan
Championship was born. The Trans-Am
cars ran at Riverside from ’66 through ’71
and would return for several events years
later. In ’66 and then from ’69 through ’71,
the Riverside Trans-Am was the track’s last
race of the year. Riverside would be the
manufacturers’ championship decider in
’69 (in favor of Chevrolet) and the
exclamation point on one of the most
thrilling Trans-Am seasons ever—1970.
Though the championship for drivers
wasn’t formally established by the SCCA
until 1971, for all intents and purposes,
one existed. To this day, SCCA record
books contain drivers’ championship
points for those early years. The unofficial
battle for the 1970 title was between Mark
Donohue in a Penske Javelin and Parnelli
Jones in a Bud Moore-prepared Ford
Mustang.
Donohue had a slight edge over Jones
coming into the Riverside race. Early in
the race, Jones’ car was heavily damaged
on the right side when he made contact
with a backmarker. “I dropped back to
ninth,” explains Parnelli Jones “The car
was understeering real bad. It was
especially bad in Turn 2 at Riverside, but
they had this curbing on the inside of the
Above: Vic Elford’s
Chaparral 2J was
on the pole for the
Nov. 1970 running
of the Times GP.
Denny Hulme won
in the No. 5
McLaren M8D.
Left: Dan Gurney
finished sixth in a
Petty Enterprises
Plymouth for his
last run in a
NASCAR event,
the Jan. ’70 Motor
Trend 500.
turn and so I’d hit it and get my car up on
two wheels so it would turn. I’ve seen
pictures of the car with the wheels two or
three feet off the ground. I managed to get
back up through the field and catch
George Follmer, who was leading the race.
I had a real battle with him. He finally
missed a shift and I got by. If I had to pick
one, I’d say that was the best race I ever
drove.”
That final Trans-Am event of 1970, the
Mission Bell 200, was also the race where
Dan Gurney would announce his
retirement as an active driver. It was most
appropriate that Gurney would run his
final race at the same track where he
started his brilliant career. He finished fifth
in an AAR Plymouth Barracuda behind
teammate Swede Savage.
50
VINTAGE MOTORSPORT Jan/Feb 2002
USAC Champ Cars
Another feather in the cap of Les Richter
and Riverside came with the addition of
the Indy cars in 1967. The champ cars
hadn’t run in Southern California in
nearly 20 years. With the Indy cars,
Riverside could now claim to have racing
events from all of America’s top
racing series.
The USAC Champ cars ran their
season ender at Riverside for three years
straight. Dan Gurney would win the first
two in ’67 and ’68 and Mario Andretti
would pull off a win at the end of his
sparkling 1969 season. Gurney calls his ’67
Champ car win one of his greatest, “That
was a real Hollywood script kind of thing.”
Gurney had to make an extra pit stop due
to a punctured tire. He made up a huge
deficit and pulled out the win against
drivers likes Jimmy Clark and John
Surtees.
Though the Champ cars were arguably
the top series in the U.S., the Riverside
event didn’t bring in enough fans to justify
the relatively large purses. “They wanted
too much money for what the event drew,”
Richter says of USAC. The 25.5-milliondollar Ontario Motor Speedway was being
built and could host a Champ car race in
1970. As they had done with the NHRA,
Ontario seduced USAC away from
Riverside.
Surprisingly, the F5000 series, which
came to Riverside for the first time in
1969, drew crowds that were nearly as
strong as the Indy car crowds. The smaller
purses for the race and fresh, young upand-coming talent proved a successful
combination for everyone involved.
From the late ’60s through early ’70s,
Riverside’s owners made a huge investment
in facility improvements. “We put about a
million and a half dollars in Riverside,
which was a lot of money back then,” says
Richter. “We did some repaving, added
permanent grandstands and eventually a
media center atop the grandstand at the
start/finish line. But, we did manage to get
the Goodyear tower for only a dollar. It
was at Los Angeles International Airport
and it was like an erector set. We took it
down, put it on a truck, took it out to the
racetrack and put it up at the start/finish
line. Later we moved it to the esses where
the whole track could be seen better.” A
left-hand kink was created at the end of
the backstretch that made Turn 9 a longer,
sweeping turn, instead of the hairpin it had
originally been.
As the 1970s dawned, motorsports was
entering a tumultuous time. The pony car
market was dying. The U.S. automakers
were struggling and their investment in
racing dwindled.
Riverside hosted its last professional
drag race in 1969. The Champ cars left the
same year, not to return for another 12
years. Trans-Am and Can-Am were on the
verge of huge troubles that would threaten
the existence of both series. Yet Riverside,
which had come so far in just over a dozen
years, would not only weather the tough
storms, the track would flourish. The
raceway still had NASCAR and F5000 and
the L.A. Times continued its important
sponsorship of the annual fall race.
In the next issue, the second half of our twopart series picks up in 1971 and follows the
ups and downs of Riverside’s remarkable
history to the closing of the track in 1988.